The Gunshot Art of Walt Creel



Birmingham, Alabama-based artist Walt Creel creates illustrations by firing guns at aluminum sheets. He calls his collection "Deweaponizing the Gun", and sees it as an exploration of guns in U.S., and in particular, Southern culture:

The terms gun and weapon are practically interchangeable. From hunting to war, self defense to target practice, the gun has been a symbol of power and destruction. Art and entertainment have both taken the same approach to he gun. Traveling Wild West shows had gunslingers that shot crude silhouettes and names, but this was done to illustrate the shooters prowess. Some artists have used high speed film to capture a bullet slicing through its target, while other artists have melted guns into sculptures.


Link via Say Uncle | Artist's Website | Image: Walt Creel

Skipweasel -- Although it would be really cool to see, I don't know how anyone could create a recognizable image out of the natural scatter of bird shot. I assume that you're referring to bird shot.

On a completely unrelated side note, I think I've dated this guy's cousin. (I live in Alabama, so it could happen.)
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The shots are done one-by-one, with .22 bullets. So no bird / buck shot.

Looks like the artist built some kind of construction in which he fixed the gun thus, that he could move it in set increments along two axles.

Almost like an old-fashioned needle plotter, with one gun instead of a set of needles.

Just a thought: for buck shot art, one would need a steel stencil and a wooden art board. That would also make it possible to pruduce a series, all slightly different because of the unique dithering of each shot...

By the way, this work would go well in a show together with work by Aoife van Linden Tol.

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2009/March/09030902.asp
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